Love.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
In Memorium, with Tea
This is my great-uncle Davie.
He is holding a postcard that his brother Izzy sent him in 1943--back when Davie was in training before serving in World War II.
Davie is one of those people you can't describe in just one word. Or maybe you can, but it would be in Yiddish, and what little I do know is transliterated from the dirty jokes he used to tell and retell at family gatherings over the years. This is the man who dispenses $2 liberally, so freely in fact that for much of my childhood I imagined him with his own little press in his basement. No one I knew had them, or spent them, so in my mind they had no monetary value whatsoever; they were Davie-money, like monopoly money, except better.
I saw Davie this weekend while visiting Los Angeles in a whirlwind trip that involved a family memorial service and twelve full hours at Disneyland. Thankfully, not at the same time. But it struck me as appropriate to have a literal roller coaster weekend surrounded by people who had, in one way or another, made my life what it is now. Whether they contributed DNA or sent me birthday greetings from halfway around the country or mailed me an espresso machine when I started college (smart thinking, cousin Shannon) or grew up with me in Davis or were game enough to make the drive to meet my loving and loud extended family (my boyfriend has, indeed, turned in his WASP card, as his brother said)--there was a lot of support emanating from everyone. And yet, we were there because someone had died. Not just someone; it doesn't feel right to leave out her name (even on a blog), because, just like every other iota of her being, her name is just too colorful and vibrant to leave out: Cippy Stambaugh.
There are at least a thousand words I could dedicate (and will dedicate) to the woman who, shortly after my 21st birthday, presented me with a Corona at 11 am at a family gathering, then gave me a painting she herself had created, and later mailed me one of her favorite stuffed animals as a good luck charm. The stories my family retold about her--hot-air ballooning, tromping around New Zealand in her 70s, untying her bikini top at a public pool to make a point--she was, in every possible sense of the word, a character.
So I'd like to raise a virtual toast (in Cippy's case, a toasted piece of bread) not only to the woman herself, but to her brother Davie, to my grandmother Saralee, to all the brilliant and brave souls of their generation who still want so much for their color, emotion, and legacy to be recognized. I recognize you.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
2.10.10
I just transferred the title of my grandfather's car into my name. I am about to own a car for the first time in my life.
There's a reason I chose today to do this. February 10 is the day I tend to reserve for minor catastrophes and miracles. Sometimes these experiences choose me; sometimes I choose them. There's a cosmic comedic timing in the universe that seems to collide for different people on different days. February tenth is one of those days.
Last year I wrote about 2.10.01 as Julia day, the day my pancreas died and the day the rest of me lived on. This year the anniversary of my diagnosis as a diabetic has no apparent, overarching, thesis; it simply is. Nine years is long enough that the daily tragedies of testing my blood sugar and adjusting my lifestyle simply aren't unusual anymore. Yesterday, as I was leaving for the radio station, the tubing of my insulin pump looped around my doorknob, and I walked a full three paces before I recognized that vague sting in my abdomen.
Being diabetic has its gifts: at times, I find ways to compartmentalize my body in ways that seemingly remove all its emotional power. My fingers double as pincushions, my stomach is pockmarked with remnants of last weeks' pump sites, my pancreas is an eternal internal mystery. And that's all well and good. The detachment that comes with recognizing you have no overall power in the universe is, in the end, a powerful feeling. There's strength in realizing we're not as strong as we think we need to be.
And yet, there is that lingering essence to this one day a year that will always have some unnameable, unknowable drama to it. It's almost as if this day is the tiniest bit longer or shorter than all the others in the year, and those moments in either direction are the secret to some deeply-protected mystery.
Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak with someone at FasterCures.org. This was part of a larger story we're pursuing at KQED, but I leaped at the opportunity to ask an expert, point blank, why nine years ago, a doctor told me I'd be cured within five years. Is it really fair to make that kind of hypothesis, to someone who has just learned she has a chronic condition?
The scientist, who I'll leave unnamed now, said simply: "I know...is it hope or hype?"
I'll never forget the doctor that day nine years ago, who looked at me and my parents and insisted that "She'll be cured in five--maybe ten--maybe fifteen years!" And I remember thinking, "What happens in the meantime?"
Here's what happens in the meantime: I graduated from high school, then college, lived abroad twice, got a job, went to graduate school, fell in love, acquired a new vocabulary and taste for glucose gel. And who knows, maybe diabetes will be cured next year, or six years after that, or twenty years after that.
Until then, I'll be driving my very first car.
There's a reason I chose today to do this. February 10 is the day I tend to reserve for minor catastrophes and miracles. Sometimes these experiences choose me; sometimes I choose them. There's a cosmic comedic timing in the universe that seems to collide for different people on different days. February tenth is one of those days.
Last year I wrote about 2.10.01 as Julia day, the day my pancreas died and the day the rest of me lived on. This year the anniversary of my diagnosis as a diabetic has no apparent, overarching, thesis; it simply is. Nine years is long enough that the daily tragedies of testing my blood sugar and adjusting my lifestyle simply aren't unusual anymore. Yesterday, as I was leaving for the radio station, the tubing of my insulin pump looped around my doorknob, and I walked a full three paces before I recognized that vague sting in my abdomen.
Being diabetic has its gifts: at times, I find ways to compartmentalize my body in ways that seemingly remove all its emotional power. My fingers double as pincushions, my stomach is pockmarked with remnants of last weeks' pump sites, my pancreas is an eternal internal mystery. And that's all well and good. The detachment that comes with recognizing you have no overall power in the universe is, in the end, a powerful feeling. There's strength in realizing we're not as strong as we think we need to be.
And yet, there is that lingering essence to this one day a year that will always have some unnameable, unknowable drama to it. It's almost as if this day is the tiniest bit longer or shorter than all the others in the year, and those moments in either direction are the secret to some deeply-protected mystery.
Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak with someone at FasterCures.org. This was part of a larger story we're pursuing at KQED, but I leaped at the opportunity to ask an expert, point blank, why nine years ago, a doctor told me I'd be cured within five years. Is it really fair to make that kind of hypothesis, to someone who has just learned she has a chronic condition?
The scientist, who I'll leave unnamed now, said simply: "I know...is it hope or hype?"
I'll never forget the doctor that day nine years ago, who looked at me and my parents and insisted that "She'll be cured in five--maybe ten--maybe fifteen years!" And I remember thinking, "What happens in the meantime?"
Here's what happens in the meantime: I graduated from high school, then college, lived abroad twice, got a job, went to graduate school, fell in love, acquired a new vocabulary and taste for glucose gel. And who knows, maybe diabetes will be cured next year, or six years after that, or twenty years after that.
Until then, I'll be driving my very first car.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Prop 8: The New Scopes Monkey Trial?
Dan Walters’ January 31st editorial in the Sacramento Bee (“California gay marriages may hinge on one man”) about the ongoing Proposition 8 trial explains how this is quickly becoming more of a “sociological and philosophical debate than a traditional evidentiary hearing.” Living in San Francisco, it is hard to avoid the daily updates about arguments both for and against the legalization of gay marriage. Walters argues that in the end, presenting this controversial topic in a federal trial means leaving a big decision up to one judge’s (Justice Anthony Kennedy) personal judgment.
I have long been interested in the legal process, and that fine line between moral or sociological opinion and the objective interpretation of the law. Just how do judges protect themselves, as well as the plaintiffs and the general public, from their own private biases? Surely, these concerns are paramount in any trial, but the cultural significance of Proposition 8 seems to raise the stakes. Regardless of how Kennedy rules, the justice will set a precedent in terms of our societal definition of marriage.
Walters worries that Kennedy’s conservative background might preclude him from hearing both sides objectively, and so do I. I’d like to raise children in a world where such personal matters as sexual orientation or who someone chooses to marry are not subjects of public debate. It’d be great if the result of all this media hype and heartbreaking personal testimonies is simply a way to honor a transition from one policy to another, and nothing else. I’d like, in five or ten years’ time, to see the Prop 8 trial as my generation’s cousin to the Scopes Monkey Trial or the Civil Rights Act. It is both amazing and terrifying to realize that American culture might very well be on the cusp of a paradigm shift, and one ruling is what stands between a dated ballot measure and a cultural revolution. Well, one ruling, which depends entirely on one justice, a few lawyers, dozens of testimonials, petitions, and protests on both sides—but ultimately, it all comes down to how well they convince Justice Kennedy.
Why is this interesting? This is interesting because this summer, the first of my close childhood friends is getting “married”—to her girlfriend. Note the quotation marks. This is interesting because gays and lesbians have already won and lost the opportunity to marry in California—twice—and marriage as an institution hasn’t failed. This is interesting because, given enough time, granting civil liberties to gays and lesbians will affect us all: gay, straight, man, woman, old, young, liberal, conservative. Statistically speaking, we’ll all have a sister or a brother or an uncle or an aunt or a friend or a mentor or a neighbor who will be directly affected by this ruling, if we can’t identify them already.
I am excited to live n an age where topics that were considered “taboo” for many years are now being paid the attention they deserve; I just hope that the result is positive change.
I have long been interested in the legal process, and that fine line between moral or sociological opinion and the objective interpretation of the law. Just how do judges protect themselves, as well as the plaintiffs and the general public, from their own private biases? Surely, these concerns are paramount in any trial, but the cultural significance of Proposition 8 seems to raise the stakes. Regardless of how Kennedy rules, the justice will set a precedent in terms of our societal definition of marriage.
Walters worries that Kennedy’s conservative background might preclude him from hearing both sides objectively, and so do I. I’d like to raise children in a world where such personal matters as sexual orientation or who someone chooses to marry are not subjects of public debate. It’d be great if the result of all this media hype and heartbreaking personal testimonies is simply a way to honor a transition from one policy to another, and nothing else. I’d like, in five or ten years’ time, to see the Prop 8 trial as my generation’s cousin to the Scopes Monkey Trial or the Civil Rights Act. It is both amazing and terrifying to realize that American culture might very well be on the cusp of a paradigm shift, and one ruling is what stands between a dated ballot measure and a cultural revolution. Well, one ruling, which depends entirely on one justice, a few lawyers, dozens of testimonials, petitions, and protests on both sides—but ultimately, it all comes down to how well they convince Justice Kennedy.
Why is this interesting? This is interesting because this summer, the first of my close childhood friends is getting “married”—to her girlfriend. Note the quotation marks. This is interesting because gays and lesbians have already won and lost the opportunity to marry in California—twice—and marriage as an institution hasn’t failed. This is interesting because, given enough time, granting civil liberties to gays and lesbians will affect us all: gay, straight, man, woman, old, young, liberal, conservative. Statistically speaking, we’ll all have a sister or a brother or an uncle or an aunt or a friend or a mentor or a neighbor who will be directly affected by this ruling, if we can’t identify them already.
I am excited to live n an age where topics that were considered “taboo” for many years are now being paid the attention they deserve; I just hope that the result is positive change.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
My First Pet will be a Squirrel Named Nutkin
"I first read this book {the Charterhouse of Parma} in 1972. When I looked at the passages I had underlined and the notes I had written in the margins on that first reading, I laughed, a sad laugh at my youthful enthusiasm. But I still felt affection for the young man who had picked up this book then and who, to open his mind to a new world and to become a better person, had read it so eagerly. I preferred that optimistic and still half-formed young man, who thought he could see everything, to the reader I've become. So whenever I sat down to read the book, we were a crowd: my twenty-year-old self, my confident Stendhal, his heroes, and me. I liked this crowd."
--Orham Pamuk, "The Pleasures of Reading" (from the collection, Other Colors)
I'm finally in a writing class that excites me. It's a short story workshop with a professor whose work I admire. For our first assignment, we have been asked to recall the first book that had this same impact on us; that mixture of innocent pleasure and the pretense of understanding everything.
The pressure in any writing program is to give the impression that one is well-read, that the power of literary analysis came at a young age and has stuck indefinitely. However, I've never been one to read a writer simply because he or she has won prizes, or belongs to a certain "canon of literature." I've got the same zeal for Little Women or as I do the dozens of graphic novels that now sprawl across my floor. My relationship with reading has ebbed and flowed over the years; at times, books were a comfort, an escape; at others, they were homework, laborious assignments to be chopped into little pieces and over-analyzed in lengthy, pretentious papers. But every now and then I stumble across that one book that keeps me up at night, not because I'm dying to understand the author's use of perspective or the timing of the flashbacks, but because the story is one I want to know, memorize, and follow. Understanding itself is not as important; I admire the mystery of an author that doesn't explain, as frustrating as that may be.
But the book that had that impact...? I think of books from my childhood as pastoral paintings: beautiful, luscious things that made me want to go outside and explore. Beatrix Potter was my first obsession, hands down. I saved my allowance for weeks so I could buy the $42 illustrated story collection at the Discoveries store downtown. What was it about her work that captivated me? The stories were so short, so concise, so beautifully drawn, little parables that featured squirrels, rabbits, hedgehogs, birds.
I didn't care much for stories involving actual humans, or contemporary social issues; I was seven years old. I wanted to know where animals lived, and what they named their offspring. I wanted the creatures I saw outside to talk back to me, and they did in her books. Potter made me hungry to read; I wanted to know all about her, and the countryside where so many of her stories are set. I'll never forget the day I realized that my elementary school was founded in the same year she was born: 1866. At seven, eight, nine years old, squirrels and rabbits and hedgehogs were very much a part of my world, both factual and fictional. I wanted to read every word she wrote, and collected every version of her stories I could find. At one point, I even had a little Squirrel Nutkin bookshelf with a copy of Pierre Lapin and El Cuento de Pedro, el Conejo. It didn't matter that I didn't yet understand Spanish or French; the words were already emblazoned in my brain. It was the exercise of opening the pages, feeling the book's spine in my hands, and absorbing the story through color and emotion.
Are they stories I have returned to in time? To be honest, I haven't revisited my Potter collection in years. At one point I even bought a collection of the letters she wrote to her fans, for hopes of deciphering some writerly wisdom from her scrawling cursive. Going back now, I see her stories for their original purpose: creative ways to write letters. A carryover from her botanical illustrations, an expression of something quieter yet bigger than she was, a meditation on setting and character. Even now, writing these words, I feel like the asshole twentysomething that Pamuk describes, but that internal admiration and reverence for Potter--that hasn't gone away. In fact, it makes me wish I had one of those collections with me here in San Francisco, so I could curl up in bed and lose myself in the Tale of the Pie and the Patty-Pan, the scary one about the dog that thinks she will be served in a mouse pie. What the hell, right? But that's just what I loved about Potter and her stories: the inconceivable was normal, because all of her protagonists were animals, and yet they had all the same fears and desires that I did at seven, ten, twelve, sixteen, and now twenty-five. I don't want to be cooked in anybody's patty-pan, literal or metaphoric.
Beatrix Potter was just the first in a series of literary obsessions, many which echoed similar themes of animals, the countryside, an old-fashioned sensibility that struck a chord somehow. There was Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods series, Carol Ryrie Brink's Caddie Woodlawn, Sid Fleischman's Mr. Mysterious and Company (read that one five times, five summers in a row), Dick King-Smith's Babe and E.B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan. All lovely books written for children, all set long before I was born, many of them wonderfully illustrated. Nostalgia runs deep in these childhood classics, and yet somehow none of them possess that innate darkness that Beatrix Potter's tales did, that acknowledgment that with good fortune came the occasional random bad luck.
How wonderful it is to remember books that didn't require lengthy explanation, whose stories and character were left refreshingly alone because I simply trusted their existence on the page. Even now, the prospect of writing or (gulp) publishing a Potter-esque "tale" feels out of reach. The authenticity of intention, and the relationship between words and art--those are two things I have yet to learn.
Next time I'm at my parents' house, the first thing I'll do is grab my old $42 Potter anthology and go to the public park, nestle down in the grass, maybe under a family of squirrels, and remember what it means to truly read.
--Orham Pamuk, "The Pleasures of Reading" (from the collection, Other Colors)
I'm finally in a writing class that excites me. It's a short story workshop with a professor whose work I admire. For our first assignment, we have been asked to recall the first book that had this same impact on us; that mixture of innocent pleasure and the pretense of understanding everything.
The pressure in any writing program is to give the impression that one is well-read, that the power of literary analysis came at a young age and has stuck indefinitely. However, I've never been one to read a writer simply because he or she has won prizes, or belongs to a certain "canon of literature." I've got the same zeal for Little Women or as I do the dozens of graphic novels that now sprawl across my floor. My relationship with reading has ebbed and flowed over the years; at times, books were a comfort, an escape; at others, they were homework, laborious assignments to be chopped into little pieces and over-analyzed in lengthy, pretentious papers. But every now and then I stumble across that one book that keeps me up at night, not because I'm dying to understand the author's use of perspective or the timing of the flashbacks, but because the story is one I want to know, memorize, and follow. Understanding itself is not as important; I admire the mystery of an author that doesn't explain, as frustrating as that may be.
But the book that had that impact...? I think of books from my childhood as pastoral paintings: beautiful, luscious things that made me want to go outside and explore. Beatrix Potter was my first obsession, hands down. I saved my allowance for weeks so I could buy the $42 illustrated story collection at the Discoveries store downtown. What was it about her work that captivated me? The stories were so short, so concise, so beautifully drawn, little parables that featured squirrels, rabbits, hedgehogs, birds.
I didn't care much for stories involving actual humans, or contemporary social issues; I was seven years old. I wanted to know where animals lived, and what they named their offspring. I wanted the creatures I saw outside to talk back to me, and they did in her books. Potter made me hungry to read; I wanted to know all about her, and the countryside where so many of her stories are set. I'll never forget the day I realized that my elementary school was founded in the same year she was born: 1866. At seven, eight, nine years old, squirrels and rabbits and hedgehogs were very much a part of my world, both factual and fictional. I wanted to read every word she wrote, and collected every version of her stories I could find. At one point, I even had a little Squirrel Nutkin bookshelf with a copy of Pierre Lapin and El Cuento de Pedro, el Conejo. It didn't matter that I didn't yet understand Spanish or French; the words were already emblazoned in my brain. It was the exercise of opening the pages, feeling the book's spine in my hands, and absorbing the story through color and emotion.
Are they stories I have returned to in time? To be honest, I haven't revisited my Potter collection in years. At one point I even bought a collection of the letters she wrote to her fans, for hopes of deciphering some writerly wisdom from her scrawling cursive. Going back now, I see her stories for their original purpose: creative ways to write letters. A carryover from her botanical illustrations, an expression of something quieter yet bigger than she was, a meditation on setting and character. Even now, writing these words, I feel like the asshole twentysomething that Pamuk describes, but that internal admiration and reverence for Potter--that hasn't gone away. In fact, it makes me wish I had one of those collections with me here in San Francisco, so I could curl up in bed and lose myself in the Tale of the Pie and the Patty-Pan, the scary one about the dog that thinks she will be served in a mouse pie. What the hell, right? But that's just what I loved about Potter and her stories: the inconceivable was normal, because all of her protagonists were animals, and yet they had all the same fears and desires that I did at seven, ten, twelve, sixteen, and now twenty-five. I don't want to be cooked in anybody's patty-pan, literal or metaphoric.
Beatrix Potter was just the first in a series of literary obsessions, many which echoed similar themes of animals, the countryside, an old-fashioned sensibility that struck a chord somehow. There was Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House in the Big Woods series, Carol Ryrie Brink's Caddie Woodlawn, Sid Fleischman's Mr. Mysterious and Company (read that one five times, five summers in a row), Dick King-Smith's Babe and E.B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan. All lovely books written for children, all set long before I was born, many of them wonderfully illustrated. Nostalgia runs deep in these childhood classics, and yet somehow none of them possess that innate darkness that Beatrix Potter's tales did, that acknowledgment that with good fortune came the occasional random bad luck.
How wonderful it is to remember books that didn't require lengthy explanation, whose stories and character were left refreshingly alone because I simply trusted their existence on the page. Even now, the prospect of writing or (gulp) publishing a Potter-esque "tale" feels out of reach. The authenticity of intention, and the relationship between words and art--those are two things I have yet to learn.
Next time I'm at my parents' house, the first thing I'll do is grab my old $42 Potter anthology and go to the public park, nestle down in the grass, maybe under a family of squirrels, and remember what it means to truly read.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Broken Things are Just That - Things
I had the unbelievable fortune to spend New Year's Eve in Hawaii, with my brother, his girlfriend Shelby, and our two families. Shelby grew up in Honolulu, so we were greeted on the island by her amazing extended family, who felt familiar in the way that love just kind of spilled out the doors of their house. And yet, even a week in seeming paradise must have its moments.
Shortly after I got off the airplane on my first day, my dad, brother and I went bodysurfing at a local's beach. The waves were high, the sky gray, the water unpredictable. The water tugged and pulled at us as if we were the bait, and it was an immense blue fish. We heard the halting shouts of lifeguards, and I saw my mother beckoning us frantically to come in. I swam in just in time to see the expression on my mother's face darken. In the time it took for me to get to the beach, my father had crumpled beneath the power of a large wave, his hands over his head. When he rose out of the water, he was clutching a broken arm.
My mom, brother and I sprang to action. I walked him into shore, Josh got the lifeguard, Mom packed our stuff in the car. Josh and Dad left for the nearest hospital, and Mom and I drove to Shelby's house, where we arrived in wet bathing suits, sand still sticking to our foreheads. And there her family sat waiting, patient, kind, offering a beautiful dinner and reassuring words. Somehow the chaos settled us, as so many contradictions seem to do, and 2009 ended on a happy, if not ironic, note.
Fast-forward to a week after the Haiti earthquake, and the weather's not nearly so catastrophic in California, and yet weird things still happen. Two nights ago, my parents woke to a huge crash at midnight, only to find that their biggest kitchen cabinet, the one filled with all of their plates, bowls, and dining ware, had somehow become unstuck from the wall and crashed to the floor. I woke up early the next morning to the following picture in my email:
There are only three letters for this: W.T.F. And yet, when I spoke with my father, who has since had arm surgery, he said cheerfully: "It was all plates. Bowls. You, know, things. Besides, we've got two left."
There was just enough oil for eight nights of Hannukkah, and there were just enough plates for my parents to eat dinner. Chaos has its way of clarifying what's important.
2010 Thoughts
My mind is a vacuum, and this is what it has sucked up: the Proposition 8 trial here in San Francisco, the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, my parents' kitchen cabinet, which crashed off their kitchen wall in the middle of the night, The Big Rewind by The Onion's Nathan Rabin, the brand-spanking-new KALW News Digital Magazine, love, and the fact that I'm in it, the upcoming Chinese New Year Treasure Hunt, Mormon comic Elna Baker, my father's broken arm, my great-uncle's 2002 Volvo, Disneyland's "Give a Day, Get a Day" program, this band, this show, this hope...
Hyperlinked-out? Perhaps, but it feels appropriate to approach this new decade with acute hyperactivity. Four internships? Okay. Seven more school applications? Okay. One class? Wait--yes, that's right, California education has no money; neither do I. And yet still there's this ever present need to be insanely active, and not in the sense of actual mobility, but in the sense that what I do and what others do is so important that all of our movements should be chopped up into one-sentence status updates that are checked obsessively on the hour. That this forum that I had intended for my own thoughts must still conform to an online format; that all posts have direct messages, and that eyes not be bored with sentences with too many clauses or paragraphs with too many sentences. I break lots of rules too much of the time, which is ironic, because at this point I'd just like to know what the rules are.
Hyperlinked-out? Perhaps, but it feels appropriate to approach this new decade with acute hyperactivity. Four internships? Okay. Seven more school applications? Okay. One class? Wait--yes, that's right, California education has no money; neither do I. And yet still there's this ever present need to be insanely active, and not in the sense of actual mobility, but in the sense that what I do and what others do is so important that all of our movements should be chopped up into one-sentence status updates that are checked obsessively on the hour. That this forum that I had intended for my own thoughts must still conform to an online format; that all posts have direct messages, and that eyes not be bored with sentences with too many clauses or paragraphs with too many sentences. I break lots of rules too much of the time, which is ironic, because at this point I'd just like to know what the rules are.
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